In the minds of most uninitiated people there exists a fear of death. This fear can even be so great that it contributes to the breakdown of happiness or joy in living. Many illnesses can be traced back to this fear. No human being can actually be unaffected by being anxious, and it is neither natural nor right to be in such a state. Not harbouring fears is admittedly easier said than done when living in a world where there is apparently enough to be afraid of. But why then is one afraid to leave this world? If it is so formidable, would it not be almost a relief to die?

It is completely unnatural to be afraid of a quite natural process. And death, just like birth, is quite a natural process for us all. In their old age the animals are not afraid when they feel death approaching. In many cases they even seek secluded places in order to die in peace. The kind of death animals are afraid of and seek to avoid by fleeing or defending themselves is that which is inflicted upon them by other beings. Such a death is a deprivation of life in that it is inflicted upon the being at an age when it is meant to enjoy physical existence and is not meant to die. Now the expression "deprivation of life" must not be misunderstood, since no living being can really lose its life. But it is a deprivation of the body inflicted upon the animals by other beings. When a beast of prey, led by its instinctive desire, kills the organism of another animal in order to assimilate it with its own flesh and blood, it deprives this being of many years of its physical life. This deprivation of the body, where the beast of prey cuts another living being off from its physical instrument for experiencing life, indicates a highly imperfect or unfinished state in evolution. It is the most conspicuous distinguishing feature of the lower and more primitive forms of existence. The animal does not harbour fears of dying of old age, but it harbours fears of losing its physical organism while it is still at its prime. The human being's fear of death, on the other hand, is not particularly focused on the possibility of being killed by another being or dying at an early age; its fear is focused on death as a whole, on the fact that it will die, even if it does not occur until it has reached an advanced age.

The civilised human being is no longer subject to the law of the jungle and is not a beast of prey, many would claim. And yet the truth is that there is no worse beast of prey than the terrestrial human being and that this same being has extended or intensified the killing principle of the law of the jungle by combining it with intelligence and the ability to think. With its enormously developed tendency to murder and fantastic ingenuity when it comes to killing, the terrestrial human being outshines all other beings on this planet. Through the unfolding of its enormous capacity to hunt, fish and slaughter, the terrestrial human being has become the animals' enemy number one, their greatest and strongest body-snatcher who every single day without exception prematurely robs thousands, indeed, millions of animals of their physical tools for experiencing life. If the animals had the purely human ability to characterise and analyse, they would have to look upon this, the greatest and strongest pursuer of their flesh and blood, as a veritable devil-being.

When the "devil" or "Satan" is mentioned in the Bible or other holy books, it is not something that has been pulled out of thin air, even if it is not to be understood literally. There are realities behind this because forms of behaviour and mentality that capitalise on the death and destruction of other beings through the unfolding of intelligence and technical sophistication do obviously exist – without these millions of killings being a condition of life. It is not so remarkable that in mankind's first budding epoch as a human being there is so much talk of devils, Satan and hell because this epoch in the evolution or transformation of the animal to the human being is actually a "devil-epoch". The future human being in God's image lives through a devil-epoch and becomes an expert in devil-mentality in order to gradually be able to differentiate between devil-mentality and God-mentality. The "human being in God's image" has, of course, learned to tell the difference between good and evil because it has been through the so-called evil not only by practising it but also by feeling it in its own soul and in its own body.

If terrestrial human beings eat meat and in so doing take part in pursuing and destroying the life of the more highly developed animals and inevitably bring about fear in animals, how could they themselves live in an atmosphere where there is no fear? They sow fear, and they must reap what they have sown. Must not all living beings find themselves in an element or atmosphere that matches their particular unfolding of energy? Must not the fish live in the water and the bird in the air? One finds this natural. But it is just as natural that the expert in murder or the killer lives in an atmosphere of killing and murder, and the expert in producing fear lives in a world where fear predominates. Where else would he find a suitable fulfilment of his life's potential? Is it not also for this reason that the "devil-mentality" is assigned to "hell" and the "God-mentality" to the "kingdom of heaven", which are not places but states? Just as a being must live in the physical atmosphere and in the physical element where it naturally belongs, so must it just as naturally live in the spiritual atmosphere that matches the wavelength of the greater part of its consciousness. Here we are faced with physical and spiritual laws of nature. Now, it should not be so difficult to find out why people live in excessive fear, where not least the fear of death is exaggerated in quite an unnatural way. They do so because they surround themselves with killing, which is preceded by the inevitable phenomenon of the animals' cry of terror and fear of death.

As long as religion, science and politics disregard the importance of a change from animal to vegetarian food then "devil-consciousness" is still taking part in ruling people. War and other "devilry" of course show the same. But one must not believe that if people were indeed able to cease their mutual wars and revolutions, they would therefore be freed from living in excessive fear. Even if the "hell of war" were to disappear (and it will one day), "devil-consciousness" would still remain in the form of meat-eating, among other things. And where there is devil-consciousness, there is hell. And where there is hell, there must be fear and terror. There one will find real "weeping and gnashing of teeth". Fear is, so to speak, the dominant thought-climate in the world today. People fear people more than ever. This fear in turn gives rise to tremendous inventiveness in techniques of murder and the expansion of the art of war. People believe that they can achieve something through attack and defence, which of course belong to the jungle and its world.

Now, one must not believe that, with this lecture, I am recommending anyone to become a fanatical vegetarian who zealously wishes to convert others from "eating corpses" or whatever other drastic expressions such a fanatic might use. I am also completely aware that merely abandoning animal food for vegetarian food is not sufficient to remove fear from a human being's mind if that being continues to sow fear and pain around itself in many other ways. But the transition to vegetarian food will in time become an absolute necessity for the whole of terrestrial mankind. And who will begin? Of course, those people who are beginning to really understand the laws of life and can grasp the whole of the great process of transformation that terrestrial mankind is at present undergoing. If you are not already a vegetarian, it is not my wish that you should become one because I say you should. My task is to show you that what happens in life around you and in your own mind is a link in the process of transformation from animal to human being, from "devil-consciousness" to "God-consciousness". I must point out those areas on which every single human being that wants to make an effort for its own sake and for the sake of the whole of mankind can concentrate its efforts to work on itself. And even if one cannot say that changing one's eating habits is the most important thing for removing fear from the human being's minds, then it is in any case something very important about which every individual sooner or later must make a decision. And one day every single human being will have to follow the path where it is not the cause of any kind of murder or suffering but learns, like the sun, to shine and give warmth and life all around. Then fear will no longer exist in its mentality; it has nothing to fear, and nothing will fear it because universal love is its natural way of being, something it sows and must therefore also reap.